Had two things happen today:
1) A couple of weeks ago, I went to sell my fully rigid 2000 Marin Pine Mountain that I set up some years ago as a rugged commuter bike. Mostly stock, but with riser bars, Suntour thumbies, beautiful White Industries cranks, a rack, fender, mudflaps. A real bombproof bike.
I ran an ad for a couple of weeks on CL for $500, a pretty good reach for a used MTB, but I felt this one was super clean, with lots of Deore LX/XT stuff, to me worth the money. Got some nibbles, but no solid bites. Got a bunch of emails like, "When you get tired of waiting at that price, I'll give you $350". But I figured it wasn't worth it to me to sell it for less, I'd just as soon keep it.
This morning, I get an email from a fellow asking me if I still have it, sort of apologetically explaining he had been meaning to get with me but had been out of town. I said sure, gave him my phone number. He calls, gets directions, shows up an hour or two later. I wheel out the bike, start explaining what a wonder it is and all, then I realize he is just waiting for me to shut up so he can peel off five franklins and leave. Didn't even ride it, said he wouldn't be the one riding it. I said something about this was a real top of the line MTB, he said he knew. We waved goodbye to the bike, he wasn't at my house for more than 10 minutes.
2) The other day, this auction was ending:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=330248324480
with no bidders, so I figured I'd pop the minimum bid to get some spare parts. Box showed up yesterday. Today, I open it, and the bars are Nitto B115 engraved "Fuji" in the left wreath rather than the usual large single N.
I've been looking for a set of these for a while for my completely original, excellent condition 1980 Fuji America. It's in excellent condition except the B115 handlebars with "Fuji" on the left wreath are chewed up on the sleeve where some numbskull had a tri bar on the bike (imagine...). I had been looking all over for a set of these, but nobody wanted to take a set off an existing bike and nobody had a set lying around.
These ones are completely identical to the ones on my bike and in like new condition. Plus the other parts are quite fine as well, definitely a pretty good deal compared to what they would sell for individually there.